Why Fast Food Chains Keep Digging Into The Past For Menu Gold

We all know we should live in the present, but we make an exception when it comes to our food; a category for which many of us are deeply nostalgic for times and flavors gone by. You'd be hard pressed not to have noticed when strolling the grocery store aisles, which have become crowded in recent years with nostalgic reinventions of treats we loved as kids, and full-on reboots of bygone snacks.

Fast food restaurants — from Burger King to Taco Bell to Arby's — have taken note of how hungry we are for the past, rereleasing retired menu items and retro looks, because they know, simply put, nostalgia sells. While trends have always been cyclical, it does seem our appetite for nostalgia has reached a fever pitch as of late, as inflation, rising prices, and a general dissatisfaction with the current day all likely contributors. 

Public outcry has also played a role in fast food chains' moves to bring back retired menu items, with customers taking to social media to demand chains bring back old faves, like the retired hash browns at Arby's or McDonald's iconic and long-missed snack wraps — which the chain announced is returning in the new year. A sentimentality for our own childhoods is perhaps the most powerful driving factor of all, especially with millennials and Gen Zs well into adulthood and eager to wield their purchasing power on treats and meals that remind them of happy, simpler times.

That wasn't a déjà vu you felt in the drive thru line — chains are increasingly (and literally) going back to the vaults for both menu items and marketing choices. In fact, what's old is new again, not just in terms of the actual food they're selling, but the look and feel at many fast food joints, too. 

Take Taco Bell for example, which recently rolled out a decades activation, featuring fave menu items from the '90s, '80s, '70s, and '60s, along with a line of merch and rereleases of cups from decades past, leaning fully into the nostalgia craze. Or Burger King, which went back to its roots in a massive overhaul of its logo, branding, menu imagery, and marketing assets a few years back, returning in large part to the well-known look and feel of the chain from the '70s, '80s, and '90s.

Fast food chains and brands alike have had to play a bit of a balancing act in terms of staying current and innovative — like with increasing vegan options at fast food chains and steady streams of trendy celeb collabs like Dunkin's latest Sabrina Carpenter espresso — while taking inspo from the past. While the fast food giants look forward to stay on top of trends and taste buds, these companies are increasingly realizing that perhaps what we're all most hungry for is a taste of the past.